Most Fantastical Scherzo?

[snyprrr]

What is your favourite Classical Scherzo movement in the fantastical style? I'm assuming 20th Century since the techniques to sound more fantastical seem to start wit... uh?... 'The Firebird'? Rimsky just CAN'T sound as fantastical...

I just plopped on, randomly, Dutilleux's scherzo from his Symphonie No.1 and was somewhat disappointed. Perhaps I was expecting a sorcerer's cauldron, but it was a fairly straight up "modern" scherzo.

I'm thinking more like Prokofiev No.3... more like that, please...

[Sergeant Rock]

What is your favourite Classical Scherzo movement

My favorite is Havergal Brian's Vivace (third movement) of the Gothic Symphony. And it ends as:

"The music heaves like a plain on which great armies are embattled. Side-drum and upper woodwind beat out a manic pounding rhythm against which strings play a tough ostinato. Bassoons and tubas make a bass of the "saurian" theme in altered rhythm, while the rest of the brass have the lions's share of glory in a vast series of canonic entries. Trumpets and cornets ring out proudly above the storm, with a note of victory, a sense of triumph and exultation (which must have been Brian's own as he came to the end of this superb movement). The music soars in boundless confidence; harps, xylophone and organ enter with more ostinati; and suddenly it is the climax of the Part I. Brian flings the music back into the home key of D minor with a cadence of astonishing boldness. From C major to D minor by way of F sharp, all in three triads: it is the sensational juxtaposition of C and F sharp that is so exhilarating [and shocking, terrifying--Sarge]. Brian has discovered his full powers. He can stride from one end of the tonal universe to the other in a split second: he can make a single cadence bear the dramatic weight of an entire movement. This is the victory of imagination over form."


Sarge

[Parsifal]

Martinu, 2, III

[amw]

Beethoven Op. 127/iii or Op. 135/ii

[kyjo]

Franco Alfano: Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Piano - II. Allegretto fantastico: https://youtu.be/zSQ2JGyVdjc

It lives up to its title!

[kyjo]

I'm thinking more like Prokofiev No.3... more like that, please...

Great choice. Also the second movement scherzo of his VC 1.

[Cato]

The Scherzo to Bruckner's Ninth Symphony foresees e.g. Bartok.

How about Tcherepnin's all percussion Scherzo from his First Symphony:

Go to the 7 minute mark:

https://www.youtube.com/v/H_cO8H55CdM&t=77s

William Walton's First Symphony also has a Scherzo of interest: go to the 20 minute mark.

https://www.youtube.com/v/exqlh5EYfQM

The wild last movement of Karl Amadeus Hartmann's Sixth Symphony is a Scherzo so large that it also acts as a finale:

https://www.youtube.com/v/pWm7GHRvKdo

[pjme]

Josef Suk : Fantastic Scherzo for orchestra Op. 25 (1902-03)

https://youtu.be/G5VlJGDdcFg

Can a Capriccio do aswell?
Erland von Koch - Nordiskt Capriccio (1943): https://youtu.be/7Zfc39LRLaE

Ginastera : Piano Concerto No.1: Schezo allucinante. https://youtu.be/cOUgN57xomo

[Holden]

Shostakovich Symphony #8 III

[ritter]

Has nobody yet mentioned the scherzo from Mahler's Second Symphony? Really?

[Biffo]

Has nobody yet mentioned the scherzo from Mahler's Second Symphony? Really?

Or the scherzo from his Seventh Symphony?

[kyjo]

It's got to be the Scherzo from Ginastera's Guitar Sonata.

Also, the scherzo from his String Quartet no. 1.

[amw]

Ok I know I didn't mention it but I'm surprised no one else thought of La reine Mab, ou la fée des songes... arguably the original of the whole "fantastical scherzo" repertoire.

[André]

Fantastical: the word describes III of Mahler's 7th to a T.

Diabolical: nothing beats the scherzo from Henri Vieuxtemps' 4th violin concerto:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qXs9BZNEf-8

[Mirror Image]

I think Suk's Scherzo Fantastico fits the bill here:

https://www.youtube.com/v/wj1Kh2NxGas

[musicrom]

I don't know this piece, but Stravinsky's Scherzo Fantastique sounds like a good bet based on the title.

[Maestro267]

What is fantastical? The thought that came to my mind when I first saw the thread was that of little fleeting woodwind bits, in fast triple time, like a tarantella. But some of the suggestions here suggest something heavier, with more of a tread to it (Brian 1 perhaps?). Or something more demented, like Mahler 7's scherzo.

The music that keeps coming back to my mind for the fleeting woodwinds is not from a scherzo, but from the finale of Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique.

[Brian]

Ok I know I didn't mention it but I'm surprised no one else thought of La reine Mab, ou la fée des songes... arguably the original of the whole "fantastical scherzo" repertoire.

This is el numero uno. As (poco) Sforzando likes to say, a perfect piece.

One of the few bits of music that I always play twice in a row.

[Mahlerian]

Ok I know I didn't mention it but I'm surprised no one else thought of La reine Mab, ou la fée des songes... arguably the original of the whole "fantastical scherzo" repertoire.

Great choice, but the scherzo from Mendelssohn's A Midsummer's Night Dream incidental music provided the model which Berlioz enhanced.

Another related, but this time drawing upon Berlioz, is the scherzo from Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony.  I don't really care for the work as a whole, but that movement is sure fantastic in both senses of the word.

(And it's in B minor!)

[Christo]

Josef Suk: Fantastic Scherzo for orchestra Op. 25 (1902-03)
https://www.youtube.com/v/G5VlJGDdcFg&feature=youtu.be

My first thought & preferred performance too.